We'll be home a week from today!

Yessireebob, the countdown is ON!
Not that I'm anxious or anything :)
While we've had an absolutely wonderful time on home ministries, and enjoyed every minute spent with friends and family, we are more than ready to be home.

But speaking of time with family... Had a great weekend with Kyle and Tina, and yesterday we stopped in Elkhart on the way back to Michigan so we could have lunch with our son and his wife.

While we were with them, Jon took a look at my computer in an attempt to figure out what I did the other day. He was at a conference this weekend (computer related, of course) and I sent him the following e-mail, which he shared them with some of those he was with. They found my plea for help vastly amusing:

I have NO IDEA what I've done, but all my books have disappeared off my Kindle.
I think I'm going to quit for the night before I do any more damage.
I've also made several hundred items in my downloads folder disappear too. There are two items left.
Don't ask me how I did it.
I have no idea.
Seriously.
How can one person do this much damage?!
Hope you're having a good time at the conference.
I'm going to watch some TV and call it a night.
While wondering if I should laugh or cry.
Maybe a bit of both :)
Love you bunches,
Mom

So glad I could inject some laughter into what I'm sure was a very serious geek time :)

And the upshot of it was, I really made things COMPLETELY DISAPPEAR. Like magic. [Only with magic tricks, you can make them reappear and such was not the case in this instance.]

I wasn't so upset about the downloads folder, since that stuff gets erased eventually anyway. But now I have to re-load my Kindle -- not hard, but time-consuming.

Oh, and that wasn't my first e-mail to Jon. Just prior to this one I'd sent him another S.O.S. about an entirely different problem, which he was able to talk me through.

Anyhoo, we also stopped at an outlet mall and Ivan was finally able to find tennis shoes! Which is not as easy as it sounds. He has a really hard time finding shoes that are comfortable. So our success yesterday caused me to do a happy dance right there in the parking lot.

Today Ivan had to go to Lansing to The Office of the Great Seal. No, I am not making this up. It's a real place! He's trying to get his paperwork in order to get his pilot's license validated in Argentina. He's been working on this for several years, and they keep coming up with yet more paperwork that he has to do. We're really hoping these are the final documents that they'll require.

While he's gone I'm working on re-packing. Over the weekend we found only one big suitcase although we stopped at five thrift stores. Ivan's going to check out a few more places on his way back from Lansing today. I really need another 3 large bags, and then I think I can consolidate the smaller ones and end up with a manageable number of 50 lb. suitcases.
I hope.

What I've done today is open up ALL the suitcases and pull out non-essentials... like Tupperware containers, some decorative items, books, and table linens -- nice but not necessary. All things I'd really like to have, but could live without.

And I've been trying to get the essentials packed together in such that each piece of luggage weighs as close to 50 lbs. as possible. Not an easy task, let me tell you. I still have several bags weighing in the 30-35 lb. range, even though I've packed them as full as can be, and tried to put heavier items in.

It's like a puzzle that I can't quite figure out.

Project 365, What Week Is It Anyway?

I have been horrible at taking photos the last two weeks. I just went through the pitiful -- and very minimal -- assortment and chose six to share. I have no excuse other than my life has been completely crazy since we got back from Colorado, with all the medical stuff and... well, mainly medical stuff. But everyone's life is crazy and most of the rest of you are managing to take your photo-a-day just fine. *sigh*

Up first is a photo of our nephew and his family:

They helped so much during our trip to Colorado! Andrew picked us up at the airport and they put us up that first night. Joy fixed amazing meals while we were with them (and gave me recipes so I can try to make them myself!) and she also gave me a ton of fabric PLUS two cutting mats and assorted rulers and other fun goodies. Like the gel pens that disappear when you iron over whatever you've written with them! Über cool and will be very helpful for marking quilts. They also loaned us their car to use while we were there. Ivan and I decided when we retire we want to move out near them so Ivan can help Andrew build planes and I can quilt with Joy :)

[This is not to say we didn't have fun with the other nieces and their families, but we spent more time with Joy and Andrew this trip.]

When we got back to Michigan, there was still plenty of color on the trees!

I have thoroughly enjoyed the extended fall this year :) Which effectively ended yesterday when it started SNOWING.

Anyway, on to more pleasant topics...
I knew there was going to be an exhibit of art quilts at the college so I scooted over a few days after we got back to check it out. Barbara Bushey is an adjunct professor and, as you can see, accomplished art quilter as well.

She had a recurring theme of water and earth in her pieces for this exhibition, and does a lot of layering with different fabrics (sheer over sheer over solid) which you can't really tell from my photos. In this small piece she actually included real stones:

I don't know if you can tell, but under a thin, sheer fabric you can see where she did a photo transfer onto fabric, featuring rocks like you'd see on the bed of a lake. She also did shibori dyeing on the sheer fabric. Very pretty effect.

Ivan was able to make it to the Friday morning prayer gathering this morning:

This is a group of men from various churches who meet every Friday to encourage one another and pray together. Ivan was part of the group for many years before we went overseas.

He had the camera with him so a lot of the snow had melted before he got back and I remembered I wanted to take a picture of it:

It was a lot prettier first thing this morning when every tree was covered. BUT I don't mind a bit that it's melting :)  Like I mentioned in an earlier post, we had not planned to be here this long and aren't really prepared for the colder temps. Ivan doesn't even have a coat!

But in 10 days he won't need one :)  Because we are heading south. WOOT!

SNOW?! Are you serious?

Yesterday it started snowing. Two weeks before Thanksgiving! We almost missed it; if we'd left on schedule we'd have been outta here by the time the snow started flying. We're not really prepared for über cold weather. We realized yesterday Ivan has no coat. He has hoodies. But he doesn't even have a sweater to put on under the hoodie. I foresee a quick stop at Goodwill on our way to Indiana tomorrow.

BTW, Ivan came through his tests the other day with flying colors. It's so nice to get good test results back!

I've been packing like a maniac this week. Sorting through closets, cabinets, a dresser, under the bathroom sink... what do we take? what do we give away? what can be thrown away? I'm pretty sure Ivan couldn't put the lid down all the way on the rolling garbage container we take out to the curb every Thursday night. And there are just flat too many suitcases. I am not even going to mention the number because it's embarrassing. I'm hoping we can track down a few more largish ones and consolidate what's in some smaller ones to bring the number down. A bunch are way under the 50# weight limit, so that's totally possible -- IF I can find bigger suitcases.

Of those we are taking with us, four are fully packed and ready to go. The remaining two are partially packed and I'm just praying we can fit the last minute items in without going over the weight limit. We're going to take as many of the four as we can to Indiana this weekend, and leave them at Kyle and Tina's. That way when they come to get us next weekend, we might not have to use their little trailer. It all depends on how much we can fit into the Saturn tomorrow. We are also going to take two large plastic bins full of things we need to leave here; they'll reside in Kyle and Tina's garage for the next couple years. Hopefully we'll have more time next furlough to go through and get rid of most of it. But it's paperwork and you can't throw that out willy-nilly.

Our purpose for going to Indiana is because Kyle and Tina are being accepted into membership at their church on Sunday. So excited to see them take this next step!

I managed to get an appointment to get my hair cut Saturday afternoon too, meaning I can return to Argentina in ten days and not have to worry about getting right in to see Florencia. Once back in Argentina, we're hoping to spend just a couple days in Carlos Paz before heading to Sta. Rosa for a little vacay. Where I'm guessing we'll spend most of our time sleeping :)  It's been a FANTASTIC six months, but folks, this furlough business is EXHAUSTING.

Makes us realize the wisdom of doing four-month furloughs in the future. We just can't keep up this pace for longer than that :)  Plus it just makes sense (to us anyway) to come back for shorter periods of time, more frequently. We'll also be a LOT more thoughtful about planning and organizing furloughs in the future. This was a learning curve for us, and we realize we could have been more efficient and productive if we'd put more thought into the limited amount of time.

One thing for sure: we'll be interjecting little "breaks" into future furloughs, so we're not so exhausted by the end. And by that I mean times alone, just the two of us, to unwind and unplug. I'd love to hear what you do when you need a break. I want to start building a "library" of ideas now!

Doing the happy dance

GREAT news: the lumps were benign. Hallelujah!
Hadn't expected to hear anything until tomorrow at the earliest so getting the good news today was such a gift. We're grateful for God's answer to prayer and His provision in all things.
Thank you for praying!

Not only doing the happy dance because of the good news, but also because it means WE HEAD HOME IN TWO WEEKS!

WOOT!

We're also thankful for this extra time to rest up before the trip. The last month has been such a whirlwind that we are exhausted. Now we can catch our breath, and get some things done we hadn't thought we'd have time to do. 

God is good all the time!

All the time God is good!